About Jhumki Basu Foundation
The objective of Jhumki Basu Foundation is to discover, nurture and spread innovative and sustainable programs to carry on Prof Jhumki Basu’s vision of democratizing science education.
JBF is the sponsor of the STEM Ed Innovators Fellowship program and the S. Jhumki Basu STEME Education and Research Center at New York University.
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JBF raises funds, makes grants, executes projects, manages awards, scholarships, science fairs, competitions and other programs in science education. JBF works with departments of education of urban school districts and with the federal government on educational policy-making.
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JBF is a registered nonprofit corporation with section 501(c)(3) tax-exemption status from the Internal Revenue Service.
About Jhumki
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Sreyashi Jhumki Basu attended Stanford University, where she received a B.A. in Human Biology in 1998 and completed her doctorate in Science Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in 2006. For her PhD thesis titled "How urban youth express critical agency in a 9th grade conceptual physics classroom," she received the Outstanding Dissertation Award from the American Educational Research Association.
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Later in 2006 she joined NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development as an associate professor.
Jhumki won the 2008 research fellowship from the Knowles Foundation for her work on the interpretation of democratic science pedagogy by new science teachers.
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She served as co-founder, acting assistant principal and science department chair at the School for Democracy and Leadership in Brooklyn, New York. She co-authored the textbook, "Democratic Science Teaching, Building the Expertise to Empower Low-Income Minority Youth in Science," Sense Publications, 2010
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Castilleja School in Palo Alto awarded its Distinguished Alumni award to Jhumki in its centennial year and dedicated a garden in her memory.
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Jhumki passed away in December 2008 after a seven year battle with cancer. Columbia University Teachers College felicitated her posthumously with its Early Career Achievement award in 2013.
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“A treasured member of our faculty, Jhumki touched countless lives and left an indelible mark on our students and our school. She was a brilliant researcher and educator who, in her all too brief career, achieved great success in advancing the state of Science Education. Her death is a great loss for the field and for all of us who were with her."
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Prof Mary Brabeck
Dean, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
New York University
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